"...the benchmark spot iron ore price has lifted to $57.81, up $2.99 from [23 April's] close. Sentiment will be very bullish around these stocks today and this will likely by supportive of the AUDUSD pair, which is trading at a healthy $0.7825."

In China, the Shanghai Composite shot up 3% to a seven-year peak despite dismal data released at the market open. Chinese government data showed that industrial profits for the first-quarter of 2015 dropped 2.7% year-on-year.

Mainland Chinese shares soared on hopes of more monetary stimulus, announcements about state firm mergers and further investment in infrastructure projects. And driving that rally are an increasing number of new retail investors.

Stephen Sheung, Head of Investment Strategy at SHK Private, told CNBC: "What's happening in the China market right now is retail money moving back into stocks after a long 5-6 year bear market. With yields going down from deposits to wealth management products and the property market not jumping back, retail investors have nowhere else to go except stocks."

In Tokyo, the Nikkei settled below 20,000 points as investors awaited quarterly earnings results from industrial robots maker Fanuc and electronics major Canon after the market-close.

In Mumbai, sentiment was pulled down by concerns surrounding retrospective taxation and lower-than-expected January-March earnings so far.

Company stocks

In Sydney, metals and energy stocks gained on the back of upbeat iron ore, gold and oil prices.

In Mumbai, ICICI Bank, the nation's largest private sector lender by assets, finished 1.85% lower after falling over 3% in intra-day trade. Higher bad loans have hit the firm's earnings for the January-March quarter.

But Maruti Suzuki, India's biggest automaker, settled 3.02% higher on news that its profit for the quarter ended 31 March jumped 60% on year.